Julian Schnabel was born in Brooklyn but spent his formative years in Brownsville, Texas. He earned a B.F.A. from the University of Houston, then moved to New York to enter the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. During the 1970s he traveled often to Europe, where he was impressed by the work of Cy Twombly, Joseph Beuys, and Antoni Gaudi. His artistic breakthrough came in 1979 with a solo show at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York; the Neo-Expressionist movement took the art world by storm, and Schnabel was one of its major figures. His large-scale “plate paintings” were filled with energy and brutality and were among the iconic works of the 1980s. Schnabel made his first feature film, Basquiat, in 1996, and has gone on to achieve great success as the director of Before Night Falls and the Academy Award-nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for which he won best director awards from the Golden Globes and the Cannes Film Festival. His celebrity, self-confidence, and flamboyant lifestyle leave few observers indifferent. In addition to residences in New York City and San Sebastian, Spain, Schnabel owns a Stanford White-designed home on the bluffs overlooking the ocean in Montauk, which he purchased in 1998.

Bob Colacello, Jonathan Becker. Studios By The Sea: Artists of Long Island's East End. P. 11. P. 209 s2. Harry n. Abrams Inc.